McAuliff's Musings

UN Embargo Vote Confirms US Isolation on Cuba

2009-10-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday October 28th for the 18th year the unilateral US embargo of Cuba will be condemned by the United Nations by a nearly unanimous vote.

Last time the drubbing was 185 to 3, with our only significant ally being Israel, a country whose citizens vacation, invest heavily in property development, and manage the largest citrus plantation in Cuba.

The fact that only passing notice of our recurring diplomatic humiliation will be taken by American newspapers and political leaders says much about the insularity of the US from overwhelming world opinion, despite eloquent speeches by President Obama.

The UN General Assembly is not the only place our isolation is manifested. Anti-embargo resolutions have been adopted without opposition in the independent forums of the Rio Group, the Ibero-American Summit, the Heads of State of Latin America and the Caribbean, CARICOM and the Non-aligned Movement.

Supporting the annual UN process is a 117 page report issued by the Secretary General on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This year 121 countries plus the European Union and 25 UN organs and agencies summarized their reasons.*

Opposition falls into three broad categories:

The embargo is seen as a violation of national sovereignty. For countries of the Western Hemisphere it is an anachronistic reminder of the interventionism of the Monroe Doctrine, and, in Cuba’s case, of the Platt Amendment.

Extraterritoriality is particularly galling for our closest allies in Europe, Canada and Asia, as US law asserts control over the actions of their corporations and banks and the sales of any products to Cuba that contain US sourced raw materials, content or technology.

UN agencies focus strongly on the humanitarian and developmental consequences to the people of Cuba, the collateral damage of an unsanctioned US trade war.

How will the Obama Administration respond?

Perhaps Ambassador Susan Rice will sound like her predecessors under George Bush, justifying the embargo on the grounds that Cuba does not have a democratic government or respect human rights. These are criticisms also held by many of the countries that vote against us, but are hardly in concert with the President’s own words to the General Assembly one month ago: “Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside.”

Political prisoners are an easy problem to resolve. US calls for Cuban reciprocity have already been met by President Raul Castro’s offer to do a classic cold war exchange of five Cubans the US has imprisoned on controversial spy charges for everyone Cuba holds as threats to its security.

Perhaps in a background briefing, the White House will say its hands are tied by Helms-Burton and other legislation.

However, our current Cuban-American ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, while Vice President of the Brookings Institution, co-authored an Op Ed in the Miami Herald which argued, “Whether you agree or disagree with the current commercial embargo, the president can effectively dismantle it by using his executive authority.”** For humanitarian reasons the Executive can respond to last year’s triple hurricane devastation by allowing sale and donation of construction, medical and agricultural equipment and supplies

In addition the President hasn’t even returned to the policies of the Clinton Administration by licensing travel for educational, cultural, religious, humanitarian, sports and other non-tourist people-to-people purposes. Such action embodies oft-proclaimed Obama values of dialogue and mutual respect, and among other things would have enabled the New York Philharmonic to perform in Havana as had been scheduled at the end of this week.

The Administration has permitted unlimited Cuban American visits and remittances but has failed in nine months to significantly liberalize travel for the rest of Americans or to modify the embargo. By doing so, the President would have given substance to his rhetoric of change in US relations with the Western Hemisphere and the world. He could have avoided or at least mitigated another signally embarrassing vote at the UN.

* http://democracyinamericas.org/pdfs/UNGA%202009.pdf

** http://obamacuba.blogspot.com/2009/02/use-smart-power-to-help-cubans.html

Two Comments on Exporting Democracy

2009-08-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/is-cuba-preparing-the-world-for-the-death-of-fidel-castro1/

The Pastors for Peace article and photos are here http://www.pastorsforpeace.org/

My own impression from a decade of annual visits to Cuba is there are ideological and practical differences between Cubans, including Fidel and Raul, on how the country can most effectively meet contemporary domestic and international challenges. It is apparent that Fidel has trouble taking on a Nelson Mandela role of revered but uninvolved founding father, and that his personal engagement has complicated Raul's efforts at reform.

However, I am disturbed by Americans, whether friendly or hostile, becoming strongly involved in another country's internal social and political choices. Making Fidel a savior or a devil and elevating idealized revolutionaries or marginal dissidents and bloggers to more than symbolic political significance complicates the task facing Americans.

Our job is to simply give Cubans as much space as is possible in this densely interconnected world to sort out their own priorities and personalities. Getting President Obama to end limits on non-tourist travel and the Congress to enable tourism and all other travel are the first essential steps to opening windows and doors for dialogue and confidence building. Terminating interventionist USAID programs, US Interests Section sponsorship of dissidents and hostile TV and radio broadcasts and the false characterization of Cuba as a State Supporter of Terrorism are the second step toward normalcy. Listening to virtually the whole world and ending the aggression of a unilateral embargo is the third and most decisive stage.

Whomever is in charge of Cuba's government, Fidel, Raul, or their collective successors will by choice or necessity engage with that new reality. My guess, and only a guess, is that the initial direction will be similar to Vietnam, opening to domestic and international market economics and increasing the amount of personal freedom.

Where that goes and how fast in terms of American and Hemispheric concepts of freedom of association, press and governance is only up to the people and institutions of Cuba. The more we insist, from the left, center or right, on what should happen, the harder it is for an organic evolution to take place.

Rob,

You are to be congratulated for the diversity of your readership. So far the comment makers tend more to the devil than savior interpretation of Fidel. For historical context they might want to read what appeared in the English press after the American Revolution.

There remain analogues in the Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian refugee communities, especially among political leaders whose power in part derives from stoking the fires of resentment and nostalgia. However, they do not control US policy and, as with Cuban Americans, do not represent predominant sentiments. More significant are those who regularly visit their homeland, send remittances, invest in small and large enterprises, and increasingly choose to retire there.

Re your comment,
"I don’t agree. We love our freedom and democracy and I don’t think it’s wrong to want to export that to Cuba."

It is not wrong to aspire; it is wrong and counterproductive to try to export.

First one must be realistic about what our democracy consists of. I cut my political teeth in the civil rights movement in the south. Until very recently citizens of the US were denied the right to vote because of race and suffered many forms of discrimination. In a way, it was even worse that the rest of the country knew of and tolerated gross forms of discrimination, not to mention practiced its own subtler forms of prejudice, including in housing and employment.

We also have a history of political repression when our system feels threatened, in the last century the Palmer Raids, Japanese internment, McCarthyism, etc. Then we can look at the last Administration which came to power as the result of a Supreme Court coup and proceeded to shred fundamental Constitutional rights after 9/11.

I have been a Democratic Party activist much of my life and treasure our freedoms of speech, assembly and competitive elections. But I am also aware of the disproportionate role that money, concentrated power, and high tech psychological manipulation play in our democratic choices.

I see many problems in Cuba's system of government and economy, and frankly discuss my views with friends there, as they do their perspective on the US. However we cannot escape the reality of history. Every time the US intervened in Latin American, it was justified by democratic rhetoric, including in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Granada and Panama. There is well documented evidence that we were largely motivated by economic and security self-interest. We have a disgraceful history of colluding with some of the most outrageously oppressive regimes in the Hemisphere. (These are the reasons the rest of the Hemisphere disagree so strongly with our Cuba policy and are uneasy with the ambiguity of our response to the Honduras coup.)

Our original role in Cuba was justified as freeing the country from Spanish colonialism, but most Cubans feel we hijacked their long painful independence struggle, imposed our racial prejudices and made them a neo-colony via the Platt Amendment which lives on in the unequal treaty that gives us control of Guantanamo. Our role before the 1959 revolution led to foreign domination of Cuba's economy and a heavy hand in its politics. Since the revolution we have used every form of intervention imaginable to impose our interests, not least the embargo.

Some dissidents and bloggers no doubt are true patriots, committed to a free and independent Cuba. Others presumably have less noble agendas. In any case, they are entitled to the same rights of free speech and assembly as everyone else in the world. However, many opponents of rulers face denial at least as grave as in Cuba, including by countries with which the US is closely allied or at least enjoys normal diplomatic and economic relations.

Inescapably dissidents and hostile bloggers are seen as intentional or unconscious agents of the overwhelmingly powerful neighbor. The more they are lionized here, the more certain is the conviction in Cuba that they are tools and allies of their enemy and the more subject they are to control and repression. We all make compromises with our ideals in order to have an effect on the circumstances in which we find ourselves. People whose standing outside their culture and country is disproportionate to their role inside can be misled as to their personal importance and power and lose touch with what really matters to bring about internal change.

As I wrote in my first post, the way to achieve space for Cuba as a country and Cubans as people is to back off, to try to overcome a tendency especially pervasive in big and powerful countries, regardless of ideology, to think their values and practices are naturally and inherently superior. Fittingly we can do far more to expand freedom in Cuba by expanding it here.

John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

The Eastern Europe Model

2009-07-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

Comment on my post on Phil Peter's Cuban Triangle blog

Anonymous said...

hmmm, I think you can find a few hundred million former prisoners of communism in the East Bloc that are pretty happy the US was "presumptuous and interventionist" during the Cold War.

My response:

1) The socialist governments in eastern Europe were based on the imposition of military power by the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II and were sustained in crises by Soviet military repression of popular resistance.

Like it or not, Cuba's revolution was a completely domestic creation which has never depended on foreign forces to maintain its authority.

2) Freedom in eastern Europe happened when Gorbachev made clear Soviet troops would no longer maintain in power unpopular regimes.

3) There never was a US travel or economic embargo against eastern Europe. A general case could be made that the transition to western style democracy went most smoothly in societies that had been most open to normal interaction with the rest of Europe and the US. (Miami hard liners were embarrassed several years ago when a conference of eastern European diplomats told them the embargo was counterproductive to encouraging internal change.)

4) The models for real change in Cuba are most likely to be found in other countries with indigenous socialist revolutions like China and Vietnam. Russia itself in effect is reverting to its own cultural and historical view of democracy, even absent the leading role of a communist party. While Vietnam and China have systematic political and human rights problems from the view of the US, Canada and Western Europe, individual freedom has increased substantially in both countries since the US ended its embargo and normalized relations.

5) Pressure from the US for Cuba to become more democratic in our terms carries the burden not only of our interventionist role over the past fifty years, but also of the unpleasant history of the prior sixty years.

6) Anyone who has visited Cuba knows that much of the population wants more individual freedom to initiate private business ventures, to travel internationally and to speak more openly about social and economic problems. The biggest obstacle to that is not the Communist Party of Cuba, many of whose members would agree with these goals. It is the threat of well funded intervention by the US and by the old guard in Miami.

7) Those who argue that Fidel and Raul depend on US hostility and the embargo to justify authoritarian rule logically should be in the forefront of the campaign to end travel restrictions and the embargo. The fact that they take the contrary position suggests their motives are either embittered revenge, or knowledge that the only way they can hope to regain power is by societal collapse, i.e. piggybacking on US "humanitarian intervention/peacekeeping" forces.

8) I sometimes wonder whether there is a more pedestrian motive at work. Presumably no interests in Miami would be as damaged by the end of the embargo as the Fanjul family and those who benefit from Bacardi's domination of the US rum market. Imagine the effect on its market share if not only Havana Club but Cuba's many other fine rums became freely available here.

Particular vs. General Travel Licenses

2009-03-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Once the Obama Administration decides to use its authority to allow non-touring travel to all Americans, regardless of ethnicity or national origin, an important nuance is whether to employ specific or general licenses. Specific licenses require an application to OFAC in which an organization must justify how its proposed program of travel qualifies under existing regulations. The license can cover a particular trips or a kind of trip being sponsored by that organization. General licenses are not applied for. Organizations and individuals wimply qualify to use them based on who and what the are and/or the purpose of their travel. For example, Cuban American travel at times was a general license under President Clinton and became a specific license under President Bush. Professional journalists and professional research currently qualify for general licenses.

Specific licenses require keeping an unnecessary and costly OFAC bureaucracy in place. Even during Clinton, the process was time consuming, expensive and arbitrary and significantly narrowed the number and range of actual travelers. Legal offices in educational and cultural institutions had to be brought into the process and played a conservative vetting role, probably leading to the demise of many aspirations. People at the grass roots were intimidated or discouraged by their ignorance of how to proceed.

Even with a more liberal mandate from the President and State Department (a default "yes" as existed under Clinton), the culture of any supervisory bureaucracy is to exercise its authority in a "responsible fashion". It will take OFAC a while to recover from eight years of Bush, and to replace/control staff members with an anti-engagement political bias. Tim Geithner's appropriate deputy will have to monitor closely what is taking place and probably will have to bring in a knowledgeable person with the right goals to directly supervise Cuba license requests and hear appeals from people who are denied or jerked around. (I also can't think of a better place to reduce government bloat than by downsizing OFAC's Cuba staff.)

Specific licenses also force legal visitors into group travel. This should be a problem for those who believe Cuba's intelligence and propaganda apparatus takes advantage of group trips with prearranged itineraries. It also enables Cuba to easily channel all higher priced US business to three preferred state companies. Over the years, the Americans who had the most varied and spontaneous encounters with Cuba were those who traveled without OFAC licenses and took public transportation or rented cars to traverse the island and stayed in casas particulares (two bedroom bed and breakfasts)

Ideally a general license is based on intention and credentials and takes the traveler at his or her word. They do not require pre-trip itineraries or post-trip reports. No one is scrutinizing whether a day at the beach was included in the time as long as the visitor can say with integrity (if anyone asks) that the trip included a significant component of education, religious interaction, humanitarian assistance, cultural exchange, sports or "support for the Cuban people".

There is one bureaucratic step back that allows a more objective criteria for a general license but no larger OFAC role. Qualification could be defined as going with or on behalf of a registered 501c3/501c4 not-for-profit organization or as writing for a community newspaper or an on-line blog, or as a professional or recognized volunteer in a related field, etc. This will also push toward group travel, but there would be more space.

Whether a general or specific license approach is followed, qualification should be extended to family members and companions.

There will be some cheating or pushing the envelope on general licenses but it doesn't matter if what one is really trying to inhibit is large scale commercial resort tourism. There will be lots more cheating in general as an Obama administration is not going to be able to enforce what Bush couldn't, especially in the past two years. Travel via third countries is just too easy and morally acceptable. The more the information spreads that OFAC has given up on blocking it, the more people will simply go. (A GAO report last year cited estimates of 120,000 annually.)

General licenses will also eliminate the problem of what to do about publicized civil disobedience by Pastors for Peace and the Venceremos Brigade since they will qualify whether they want to or not. Clinton and Bush couldn't do anything about their travel. Is a liberal civil liberties inclined Administration more likely to be repressive?

It is clear from discussions among Cuba activists, that the idea of "travel challenges" is entering more into the mainstream. If the Congress or Administration have not acted on travel by July, there will be grreater overt exercise of the right to travel, and even more covert non-cooperation. Many of the people involved will be former supporters of, and donors to, the Obama campaign, 84% of whom want normalization according to the October poll.

Stategy and Tactics 2

2009-02-28T11:38:00.001-08:00

Further thoughts about why I believe a two track executive + legislative approach is required if we are serious about changing US-Cuba relations.

1) We can not afford to leave the Administration to its own devices. We should push against prolonging the interagency review without significant action by creating a buzz through our networks on a nationwide as well as DC basis. We must bring to the surface the full potential of what Obama can and ought to do consistent with his own goals and values. Staying silent guarantees that the only pressure he feels is from the "go slow on change" camp.

Ones stance on this question depends on
a) whether you think it is positive or negative if the Administration allows the twelve categories, and
b) how that balances with a realistic assessment of prospects for legislative victory and the likely time line.

If a credible case is made that there is a high probability of victorious floor votes in the next two or three months. I am not as concerned about the danger of just focusing on Congress. However if we are talking about summer or fall floor votes and an uncertain result, the equation is different.

A Cuban American friend writes from Miami (edited for style):

I spent two days in Capitol Hill with a very strong Jewish American delegation who traveled with me to Cuba last year. We visited Berman's office, Engel himself and other very important members and the fight for ALL travel is a difficult one, a long one and it might not be a winnable one this year, with Reid, Menendez, Ros Lehtinen, Wasserman Schultz and others (not to mention the PAC which has already greased all new members' pockets) putting on a strong fight.

The President must sign the executive order for Cuban American family travel and expand on his powers for purposeful travel....as a first step. Congress can then put up a good fight and we will see if they can deliver…

I, and the others that accompanied me, did not get any "warm" feelings about the win for travel for ALL Americans. I have worked for over 10 years to change US policy towards Cuba from trying to amend the food and medicine embargo to lifting travel, not just for Cuban Americans but for all Americans...It pains me that many of our allies are not there to support unconditionally and urgently the President signing the executive order for family travel and possibly more...and don’t see it as a first step in mending policy. It is the correct thing and the moral thing to do RIGHT NOW and we should all be on this page.

It does not mean that we would rest one second to continue to press Congress to pass those bills, but the opposition is fierce, the money is flowing and if our allies put all their political capital to press only this Congressional tactic, we have a real chance of having NOTHING at the end of the day and that would be truly disastrous and unpardonable.

A bird in the hand is especially worth two in the bush in this case because it allows a wide range of institutions to create programs with Cuba even as soon as this spring and summer, and certainly for fall and winter. If there is likely that a bill is not approved until summer or fall, or even next year, we will have lost the energies of the participants in pressing Congress after they come home. We will also lose a travel season and thus income for Cuba and for pro-travel US organizations.

Having a Congressional majority in 2000 produced legislation that was a big victory on agriculture, but the same legislation contained the codification, i.e. limitation, to the 12 categories of travel, taking away the previous flexibility of the President. Legislation is like making sausages it has been said. The other side is quick on its feet and has shown that it has more firepower than we do.

We cannot base our tactics on being in the best of all worlds. If the above assessment based on recent Hill visits by a very experienced person is accurate, or reality falls somewhere in between, and we don't clearly have a majority of votes, what happens? Do we have evidence that enough has changed in terms of Congress from the twin defeats on the democracy funds and the Rangel amendment that we are prepared to bet the farm? Objectively we still have the problem of human rights and political prisoners that drastically undermined support after the “black spring” of 2003 not to mention the well placed funds and political machine of the other side.

2) Leverage on the Administration is greater now while it is deciding how it needs to present itself at the Summit of the Americas, the review process is ongoing and on the heels of the Lugar and Brookings recommendations. Once the review is concluded, the Administration will be in the mode of selling its conclusions to Congress and to the media. The Democratic majority and the chattering class will be reluctant for months to directly challenge whatever emerges from considered interagency deliberations which puts us into the 2010 election cycle an an open Senate seat in Florida.

Motivating our base for sustained work is complicated. I suspect most of our strength lies in districts and states occupied by natural supporters of travel legislation. When the focus is spread among 435 districts and 50 states, some will be easy and some will be impossible. The challenge is what happens to those energies that have either quickly achieved cosponsors or reached an impenetrable wall.

Focusing attention on a single national target in the White House was pointless when the target was as impervious to reason and our constituency's opinion as Bush. However, when the target is philosophically inclined to, and has many personal links with, our side, mounting a national campaign to appeal to the President’s better angels, or to reinforce and prod our friends on the inside, engages everyone regardless of where they live.

The click-throughs on my newsletter links suggest our base is more likely to give us leverage with the White House than with Congress, at least for the next year.

For what it is worth, the top four were

26% the White House comment page
13% the You Tube interview with Mariela Castro
10% the bill text and cosponsors on Thomas
7% the Florida PAC recipients and donors

(newsletter can be seen here)

3) Bottom line is that the more we get from the Administration, the better positioned we are intellectually and with a reenergized base to influence Congress. If we abandon seeking to influence the executive, minimal policy change could result. We will be forced to challenge an Administration that is very popular with our supporters and the country. We need Obama to do enough with his existing power and to be positive about further action by Congress so that we are working with him not against him. It will be far easier for us if the Administration is advocating rather than ignoring or opposing partial engagement through non-tourist travel and our job is to argue the need for Congress to fulfill the potential of full engagement.

We need to push back aggressively against the arrogant televised boast of Sen. Menendez (D, NJ) as reported from Miami:

“The only thing the administration is going to allow is a roll back to Clinton era family travel" and "if it came down to listening to Senator Lugar (who has called for broad reconsideration of US policy) or him and others in the Cuban American community, Obama would listen to him and the others"

The Omnibus Appropriations bill has created confusion about the status of family travel and the practical effect of non-enforcement provisions. (more here) The clearest way to solve the problem is for the President to fulfill his promise of unlimited family travel and remittances. The only way to do that without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and national origin is to also authorize the rest on non-tourist travel. It also speaks to Obama’s value of dialog and responds to broader American and international opinion.

It is not a question of giving up before the battle in Congress, but rather being smart about how to win. Given reports that we may be in trouble at the Committee level and on the Floor, and that Democratic members are reluctant to cosponsor because they don’t want to get out ahead of their own Administration, we need to think hard about what changes the dynamic in our favor.

Hill people I've talked to, both three months ago and now, simply don't agree with the argument that the Administration opening the door to non-tourist travel will undermine work on the legislation. They see it as just the opposite.

If a Congressional office says it is not ready yet to cosponsor the legislation, but it will urge the White House to authorize family and non-tourist people-to-people travel, were they more likely to have said yes to cosponsinb if they were not also asked to call the White House?

Strategy and Tactics, February 2009

2009-02-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

There is effective unanimity on our strategic goal of unrestricted travel for all American, as reflected in the slogan "travel for all, not for some, not for none". All sectors are pushing in the same direction, including business, agriculture, the travel industry, centrist think tanks, advocacy groups, solidarity networks and all but the most hard line sectors of the Cuban American community. The blogosphere is buzzing, pro and con.

However on tactics there has been a sometimes sharp disagreement between those who believe it is essential to simultaneously press the Obama Administration to go as far as it legally can and push for Congressional action. vs. those who believe that the single legitimate focus is Congress as the only place where all travel restrictions can be ended.

Regrettably, I believe a Congress-in-isolation strategy may seriously undermine our prospects for victory this year. Foreign policy is widely seen as the prerogative of the executive branch, especially when the legislative and executive are newly held by the same party.

Realistically, winning in Congress is not a sure thing and, in any case, we could lose many months, perhaps into the fall or later.

Let me be clear. I agree it is vitally important to engage every national organization and grass roots network in support of the legislation. Obtaining cosponsors for HR 874 and S 428 is a concrete focus for local work and an important metric of how well we are doing. Growing the cosponsor list also encourages greater boldness by the executive.

However, ignoring the substantial changes that the Administration can and should make in a timely manner could be a costly mistake, a classic example of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

I believe we must simultaneously urge people at every level to not only work for the legislation, but also to find ways to impact the interagency policy review currently underway, including use of the on line tool the Administration has offered to maintain engagement with its base .

To be blunt, we cannot afford to let our friends "off the hook".

The Administration is one month overdue in meeting its commitment to unlimited travel and remittances for Cuban Americans. If you have not read Alvaro Fernandez impassioned plea for family travel without further delay, go here

Given everything Barack Obama stands for, he will be inclined to use the same authority to provide general licenses in a non-discriminatory fashion for the other categories of non-tourist travel. But he faces substantial negative pressure and there must be a positive balance coming from our side.

It is simply not acceptable, either for us or for Western Hemisphere opinion, for an Obama Administration to do the minimum of only family travel. Karen DeYoung's report in Saturday's Washington Post on the far reaching letter and staff report from Senator Lugar, contained the following:

"An administration official said yesterday that it was "not unreasonable" to expect that Obama would ease constraints on family travel and remittances to Cuba before he attends the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. "

The Republican staff report does not address other non-tourist travel.

I don't go as far as a colleague who believes that the Congressional route is a waste of time because Bob Menendez and Rahm Emanuel have already agreed that legislation will not happen. However, I do take seriously what key Congressional staff have told me of the uncertain potentially long time-line for floor votes, and the benefit to their effort of maximum prior Presidential action.

If we can not get this White House to act boldly within its own sphere now, why do we think it will lean on Congress later to pass legislation? If it does not, why do we believe that Miami's well funded operation in Congress can be beaten in 2009 when they creamed us in the last two recorded House votes? If we do not win on the Hill this year, is it more likely in 2010 when there is a wide open race for the Florida Senate seat?

Jake Colvin wrote a long well documented report on the power the executive has that goes beyond travel, in fact to suspend virtually every aspect of the embargo except tourism.

Do we risk fighting the last war on uncertain legislative ground and missing real opportunities with a potentially more sympathetic and more powerful executive?

Steve Clemons in The Washington Note makes an important passing comment in his analysis of the Lugar letter and staff report:

"someone close to Shannon and those potentially contributing to this policy review told me it would be important for the administration 'to hear from Congress.'"

Cosponsoring legislation to end all travel restrictions is only one way for Congress to make itself heard, and may not be the most effective in the relevant time frame. It could set too high a threshold, either because of disagreement with full travel, or because of reluctance to challenge so soon the executive's role on foreign policy.

In any case, gathering a significant enough list of cosponsors may take too long to influence the policy review. As I recall we were at it for months on the Rangel bill.

It is not hard for folks to ask their Representative and Senators in the same e-mail, fax or call:
1) Will you cosponsor HR 874 or S 428 to end all travel restrictions?
2) Will you ask the White House to quickly authorize general licenses for Cuban Americans and other non-tourist travelers?

Please urge your contacts do so before we lose an irreplaceable opportunity!

***********************

I just spoke at the Educational Travel Conference in New Orleans. With five days notice, more than forty people participated in a session on Cuba at 7:45 a.m. It was one more illustration that the sector that helped produce 84,500 non-Cuban American visitors in 2003 is ready to reengage as soon as Obama opens the door.

The serious visitors to Cuba brought by such programs will be opinion leaders and trend setters. Their return or new experience will make them far more motivated and effective advocates with Congress--and supporters of later more controversial moves by the Administration to fully normalize relations.

Their travel will also bring resources and recruits to the organizations and businesses seeking to end all restrictions.

Sun Sentinel Op Ed

2008-11-13T20:13:00.000-08:00

U.S.-Cuba policy: Time for reform, easing restrictions

By John McAuliff

Sun Sentinel, November 9, 2008

In his victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park, President-elect Barack Obama recognized that there are "alliances to repair." The Democratic Party platform plank on Latin America pledged "We must turn the page on the arrogance in Washington."

United States policy toward Cuba is the easiest place to demonstrate that these words are more than rhetoric.

Five days before Obama spoke, national leaders at the Ibero-American Summit in El Salvador urged the United States to repeal its 47-year-old unilateral embargo against Cuba, saying it "is unacceptable and harms the Cuban people."

The week before, the UN General Assembly for the 17th time insisted with a virtually unanimous voice of 185-3 that the United States should end the embargo.

All our friends and allies in the Caribbean, the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Asia opposed us. Israel is our only significant supporter but actually follows a contrary policy as its citizens manage Cuba's largest citrus groves and are major investors in property development.

It is not enough for the president-elect to take the humanitarian step of unrestricted visits and remittances by Cuban Americans.

If he wants to restore U.S. regional and international credibility, he must quickly initiate a more significant policy change.

Obama cannot end the embargo without Congress. But he can unlock the logjam in both countries by using his legal authority to restore in a non-discriminatory fashion the constitutional right to travel to every American who wants to make "non-tourist" visits.

By regulatory fiat, the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department can restore and expand by general license the kind of journeys that took place before 2004 by world affairs councils, museums, Elderhostel, Semester at Sea, religious and humanitarian groups, sports teams, musicians, artists, professional and business associations, students, alumni, people-to-people exchanges and serious individuals.

Most such trips were blocked by the Bush administration, ostensibly because they provided funds to Cuba's government, but the peak number of 84,500 opinion leaders and curious Americans hardly counted among two million European, Canadian and Latin American tourists.

The cost of U.S. self-isolation was confirmed when Washington's role model for responsible hemispheric leadership, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, announced in Havana last week that Raúl Castro will travel to Brazil in December "to participate in the first meeting of Latin American and Caribbean nations, without interference from any other power."

John McAuliff is executive director, Fund for Reconciliation and Development, www.ffrd.org

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-forum09cubasbnov09,0,2832224.story

Why Obama Should Open Travel

2008-11-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

Reasons for initially focusing on the power of the Executive to revitalize travel

1) President Obama has to deliver quickly on family travel given his many statements, the Party Platform and the pent up pressure for visits, some urgent due to hurricane damage and illness.

2) The 84% of his supporters that want more are not likely to be happy if he stops their travel. Cuba offers an easier accommodation to the base than Iraq, Afghanistan or the economy.

3) It is anomalous for a post racial administration to accept a right to travel based on ethnicity or national origin.

4) Brazilian President Lula and virtually the whole membership of the UN are making it clear that the end of US hostility to Cuba is an important factor in improving our reputation.

5) The reelection to Congress of the three Cuban American Republican hardliners may hamper us on the House floor, but not with the Obama loyalists they fought so bitterly.

6) Growing numbers of Americans, largely Obama voters, will ignore restrictions and just go, perhaps as soon as the 50th anniversary observances at the end of 2008. If Bush's OFAC had no moral authority or legal ability to enforce travel restrictions , Obama's will be even less able to.

The primary focus is to enable the wide range of non-tourist travel that could begin this winter with Cuba by directing the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to issue general licenses for twelve categories of "non-tourist" travel that were codified by Congress in 2000.

Publicly the Obama campaign addressed only the question of Cuban American travel, but nothing was said that precluded non-discriminatory support for visits by other Americans.

President Obama has a lot of room to go further. A Zogby poll commissioned by the Miami Herald released October 16th confirmed results of earlier Gallup and AP/Ipsos surveys, that 68% of Americans favor allowing all U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba. An awesome 84% of "Obama supporters favor revising US policies toward Cuba".

An immediate move by the new President to allow travel to the maximum extent permitted by law will forestall a long diversionary battle with the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and their beneficiaries, both Democrats and Republicans, who decisively defeated Representative Rangel's pro-travel amendment to the Agriculture bill last Spring.

As importantly, new or return visits to Cuba in 2009 by tens of thousands of people with a serious purpose will engage and energize an important non-Cuban American constituency of opinion leaders. The Obama Administration will need them to successfully overcome the more contentious problems associated with direct negotiations and the embargo.

While I sympathize with the humanitarian and political reasons the campaign stressed the value of Cuban American travel and remittances, I believe there will be a significantly greater impact on economic and political evolution within Cuba (and the US) from mainsteam non-tourist visits.

There also may be no easier way for President Obama to quickly signal to his supporters, the general public, the Western Hemisphere and allies and adversaries internationally that a new era is really upon us than by decisively moving beyond the hoary anachronism of US policy on Cuba.

As with Vietnam and China, obstacles to normalization appear overwhelming only until it is done. Expansive travel properly authorized by the President is the essential first step so Congress can finish the job.

Published letter and NY Times editorial

2008-03-07T06:05:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2008
Letter
An Approach to Cuba

To the Editor:

Re “And a Chance for Cuba — and the U.S.” (editorial, Feb. 20):

You are correct. The best immediate way to support reform in Cuba is for the president to “loosen restrictions on cultural and academic exchanges and open the way for serious diplomatic contacts with Mr. Castro’s successors.”

The initial response of the leading presidential candidates to Fidel Castro’s retirement was not very different from that of President Bush. None have called for returning to nontourist people-to-people initiatives as flourished before 2004, not to mention restoring to all Americans our constitutional and human right of freedom to travel.

In a campaign focusing on change and rebuilding United States leadership in the world, there should be more attention to an anachronistic policy that is far simpler to fix than Iraq — with as great a benefit to our international reputation.

To his credit, Barack Obama has expressed readiness for unconditional negotiations with Raúl Castro. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain insist on the failed formula of making laudable American goals of human rights and democracy a precondition.

Two-thirds of Americans want to end travel restrictions and normalize relations. According to a recent G.A.O. report, 120,000 a year are voting with their feet and going to Cuba through third countries.

John McAuliff
Executive Director, Fund for Reconciliation and Development
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Feb. 20, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/l24cuba.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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New York Times
February 20, 2008
Editorial
Twilight of the Dictators: And a Chance for Cuba — and the U.S.

It was age and illness, not the free voice of the Cuban people, that finally led Fidel Castro to announce Tuesday that he is stepping down as Cuba’s president — after a mere 49 years of absolute power. Mr. Castro’s immediate successor is likely to be his 76-year-old younger brother Raúl. Still, the post-Fidel era is clearly at hand, and the Bush administration has done almost nothing to prepare for it.

Cuba is a closed, repressive society. But the administration has gone out of its way to ensure that it has no chance of influencing events there. In the name of tightening the failed embargo, it has made it much harder for academics, artists and religious people to travel to Cuba and spread the good word about democracy, and much harder for Cubans to visit here. Rather than probing the ongoing political transition, the White House has dismissed it in advance as insignificant.

A policy that made little sense in the cold war makes still less in today’s age of globalization — when America does not hesitate to trade with and invest in other repressive countries (China, for example), recognizing that commerce is more likely than isolation to nurture positive political change.

The embargo provided Mr. Castro with a built-in excuse for his own failed economic policies and ruthless political repression. It made it easier for him to wall ordinary Cubans off from American friendships, political ideas and affluent lifestyles. It handed him a propaganda tool to discredit courageous Cubans who openly campaigned for greater democracy. Continuing this policy of isolation will only make it easier for whoever succeeds Mr. Castro to continue the same repressive policies.

If President Bush wants to get the message of democracy across, he should loosen restrictions on cultural and academic exchanges and open the way for serious diplomatic contacts with Mr. Castro’s successors. Bucking Miami’s politically powerful anti-Castro community won’t be easy — especially in an election year. If Mr. Bush cannot summon up such courage, we hope that the candidates vying to succeed him will make clear that they would change policy as soon as they reached the White House. Tuesday’s first round of statements showed little creativity or courage.

For millions of Cubans, the wait for Mr. Castro to go has been almost interminable. Now that he is finally stepping down, Washington needs to do all it can to help encourage a peaceful transition to democracy. It needs to shake off its own ghosts and start talking directly with Cuban politicians and the Cuban people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/opinion/20wed2.html?ref=opinion

'Dialog" about travel

2008-03-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

CUNY Students' Trip to Cuba 'Propaganda'
By BENJAMIN SARLIN
Special to the Sun
March 4, 2008

A planned trip to Cuba by a group of CUNY graduate students is drawing criticism from politicians and one of the school's board members. The nine students, who are enrolled in the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education, left yesterday with City Council Member Charles Barron and the director of the center, Joseph Wilson, to study the communist nation's health care and education systems.

"This is going to be used as a propaganda tool for Fidel Castro," Rep. Vito Fossella said yesterday in an interview. "If anything is going to be accomplished of significance, the visitors should ask Fidel Castro when he is going to liberalize the economy, release political prisoners and dissidents, and hold fair elections."

A CUNY trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, said he was concerned about the students' visit.

"I don't have a blanket objection to travel to Cuba, and certainly people who want to go there to expand or advocate for the rights of the prison population that I consider the Cuban population to be, or for religious freedom, or who have made Jewish or Christian missions there, I don't oppose," Mr. Wiesenfeld said. "But this particular mission, which seems to be a celebration of Fidel Castro let's say I'm nonplussed."

A spokesman for CUNY, Ernesto Mora, defended the trip.

"Many groups have visited Cuba in recent years as scholars and students of history and political affairs seek an understanding of the country's past and current affairs and a perspective on future possibilities," he said in a statement. "Graduate Students enrolled in the Center for Worker Education are making this trip as part of their course of studies. It is an academic, not a political, event part of an academic exchange fully in keeping with the university's educational mission."

The spokesman could not immediately determine whether taxpayer funds are being used to sponsor the Cuba trip. Americans are prohibited from traveling to Cuba, and student trips have brought legal scrutiny in the past. The government is currently investigating a community group that helped organize visits to Cuba by students from the Beacon School in Manhattan.

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My comment on line:

Why are they afraid of travel to Cuba?
Reader comment on: CUNY Students' Trip to Cuba 'Propaganda'
Submitted by John McAuliff, Mar 4, 2008 09:50

People who oppose travel to Cuba either have no confidence in American values and independent mindedness or want to prevent Americans from seeing a far more complex reality than their political views acknowledge.

Doesn't it bother Rep. Fossella and Mr. Wiesenfeld that part of the unpopularity of the US in our hemisphers is that we look and behave like an old fashioned colonialist bully toward Cuba? Our unilateral embargo has been condemned by the UN for the past 16 years, most recently by 184 to 4.

Israel is our only significant ally on this issue and they make no effort to bar their own people from going to and investing in Cuba.

Cuba is the only country in the world we are not allowed to travel to by our government. Does it make sense to deny Americans a fundamental Constitutional freedom, ostensibly in the name of supporting the freedom of Cubans?

John McAuliff

Fund for Reconciliation and Development, 145 Palisade Street, Suite 401, Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522

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Cubans Fundamental Freedom

Reader comment on: CUNY Students' Trip to Cuba 'Propaganda'
in response to reader comment: Why are they afraid of travel to Cuba?
Submitted by Rogelio Perez Leiva, Mar 4, 2008 13:44

The fundamental American freedom that Mr. McAuliff refers is the same freedom that the Cuban people have been denied for the past fifty-year. Obviously, he is not concerned that when he support the traveling of Americans to Cuba he is supporting a system that denies that freedom to Cubans. It is because American independent mindedness and values that American should be appalled about the situation in Cuba and refuse to participate in such a macabre charade. Traveling to that enslaved nation, is given money and support to the group of people oppressing its own nation. In Cuba the tourist industry is control by the Military . Futher more, Cubans are denied entrance to the hotels an beaches that are reserved for tourists only. The people that will be in direct contact with those students visiting Cuba are selected individuals, very well trained in the business of selling to foreigners the "achievements of the Revolution". In other words,what they are going to see is what the Castro brothers want them to see. Rogelio Perez Leiva.

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Freedom is freedom's best weapon

Reader comment on: CUNY Students' Trip to Cuba 'Propaganda'in response to reader comment: Cubans Fundamental Freedom

Even if I thought this comment was an accurate description of Cuba today, it is non-responsive.
The freedom of Americans to travel should not be conditioned on whether a very small but powerful group of embittered exiles (a minority even in their own community) give permission.

Or should Chinese, Vietnamese, Russians, North Koreans, Burmese, Saudi Arabians, etc. now living in the US be able to stop us from traveling to their homelands? Does Rogelio Perez Leiva think Americans should also be barred from traveling to those countries which do not have legal or political systems like our own or does he agree with the Bush Administration that such a proscription should apply only to Cuba?

What does he think about Cuban Americans? Should they be limited to visiting a narrow definition of family members once every three years as favored by George Bush and Hillary Clinton?

Or does he agree with Barack Obama that there should be no restrictions on their travel and remittances? They are certainly not seeing people the regime wishes and virtually all the money they bring into the country goes to their families.

In fact other Americans are not limited to contacts with officials. Anyone who visits who does not choose to stay at an isolated resort can tell you Cubans are frank in their criticisms of the regime--and of the embargo and of hostile Cuban Americans who sustain it.

What does he think about Cubans speaking out against the restrictions on staying in resort areas, including in the student challenge to Ricardo Alarcon which can be seen in full on a Cuban web site? Doesn't that suggest Cubans are less repressed than he believes?

This foreigner only policy in resorts is wrong, but in practice it is not very different than the economic discrimination practiced at private resorts elsewhere in the Caribbean. It also does not apply, incidentally, to public beaches near Havana and elsewhere in Cuba where foreigners and Cubans mingle freely.

However this is a situation in which all I can say is ignore what people say, myself included, and go. See for yourself, make up your own mind, and wonder what the real motivation is of those who seek to prevent you from doing so.

The strength of our system is in its openness. Unfortunately those who have been acculturated in a closed system, be it Batista's or Castro's. mistake control for strength.

John McAuliff
http://www.nysun.com/comments/61478

Dialog with the left about supporting reform in Cuba

2008-02-25T18:44:00.000-08:00

My letter to the New York Times has discomforted some on the left who are uncomfortable with the concept that US policy should be shaped to support reform. Following is my response.

Fundamentally the need for Cuba and other similar nations is to get big countries to respect the sovereignty and right to be different of smaller neighbors. While that feels like an issue of imperialism from the inside of the imperium, communist Vietnam has the same problem with communist China.

The reality is that smaller neighbors will always be influenced and shaped by bigger neighbors, for better or for worse, especially when size, wealth and power are so unequal. They need to find ways to protect their independence and identity within that reality.

Vietnam has done it by being strong, building up countervailing regional and international relationships but also by flattering China's assumption of its natural preeminence. Cuba has used the first and second means to deal with the US, but has not been very good at the last.

It is not surprising that aware people in the big bullying country sometimes overcompensate and uncritically identify with the perspective of the smaller country. Some folks go to Cuba and see nothing but problems, or overstate them. Others go and see courage and righteousness. Any problems are blamed on the US.

I have noted that official Cuban interlocutors have increasingly adopted the stance that Cuba is neither heaven nor hell. They convey both approach and avoidance to the older pattern of un-(or barely) critical solidarity.

I don't see any downside to acknowledging that there are serious problems within Cuba and not all of them can be blamed on the US--just as Raul Castro does; and that there is a serious effort underway to frankly describe and solve these problems, a.k.a. reform.

The more a country is under threat and feels vulnerable, the less likely it is to take risks which are seen as exposing itself to outside interference and to acknowledge its vulnerability. For example one reason that has been advanced by Cubans who oppose more entrepreneurial activity has been that success promotes self rather than collective interest, leads to internal differences and undermines the presumed bulwark of solidarity.

From my experience in Vietnam, I think the solidarity of impoverishment is not nearly as motivational as a sense of opportunity to succeed personally and as a family, and to escape the bureaucracy that is intrinsically intrusive when a government tries to assure equity.

Those who have power in any system always have the best of reasons to make their lives more comfortable than the average and become resented by those who do not have such power, even if the system also gives them unparalleled social benefits. This is true in Cuba today and moral lectures or policing are unlikely to reverse it.

One way to balance official/party privilege is to open ways for people to improve their lot through alternative means of private endeavors. Obviously that can get out of control too, creating its own set of conflicts as private wealth and comparative poverty accelerates. That process is well advanced in China and Vietnam faces some of the same risks.

Never-the-less, I know no Vietnamese who wants to go back to the past even though appalled by aspects of the present.

I think the extraordinary accomplishments of Cuba's revolution are more at risk if they are not able to achieve significant reform so I think it is actually an act of friendship and not of intervention to say explicitly that a different US policy will help reforms to happen.

Cuba has accomplished great things but at great cost.

2008-02-21T21:26:00.000-08:00

In response to "Fidel: father of modern Cuba" by Saul Landau

http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=346&Itemid=1

Fidel is neither savior nor devil, but an important historical figure who, like any human being, makes mistakes.

He seems to me primarily a moralist, shaped as much by his Jesuit education as by Marxism-Leninism (which itself has aspects of a Christian heresy).

From my own perspective, the combination of his idealism and personal dominance of Cuban politics for such a long period frustrated creativity and reform, in particular the adoption of market mechanisms at the grass roots that I have seen to be of tremendous benefit to peoples' well-being and hope in Vietnam.

This was not entirely his choice. The seldom swerving hostility by a superpower neighbor with two centuries of ambition to dominate Cuba's politics and economy put a premium on discipline and solidarity, which there, as in the US and other countries, too easily becomes repression of opponents.

However, from an outsider's viewpoint, regular change in leadership in any political system is vital for its health. New leaders bring new relationships, new networks of advisors, and new approaches to old problems.

Cubans, both in the country and émigrés, should and will find a balance in their judgment of the role of Fidel, and no doubt that will change over time.

Having met him only once, in December 1971, I can add little personal insight. I do recall that he and I may have been the only persons in Havana expressing positive feelings about George McGovern in the run-up to the 1972 election. Certainly the other Americans with whom I was traveling did not share our enthusiasm.

In any case, it is not the role of Americans, friends or foes, to tell Cuba how it should organize its society politically or economically. There's too much history of Americans (and Brits and French and Russians and Chinese) presuming to know what is good for other smaller nations, and of consciously or obliviously putting their own political, economic and philosophic interests first.

The best we can do is to be true to our own values, i.e. freedom of expression and travel, and remove the obstacles that distort Cuban choices, i.e. regime change subsidies and the embargo.

Freed from external threat and sanction, I don't doubt that Cubans will find their own path internally as well as reconciliation with their divided families and culture. 2/21/08

Castro’s Retirement Offers Opportunity for Change -- in US Policy

2008-02-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

Blinded by ideology and hobbled by Miami’s special interest politics and donations, the Bush Administration will remain irrelevant to the transition in Cuba dramatized by Fidel Castro’s retirement. It will also miss an opportunity to begin to rebuild America’s reputation in the world.

The real question is whether the Democratic Congress or candidates for President can do any better.

Serious change is underway in Cuba. International journalists have reported a country frankly examining its economic and social problems. The voices of Cubans themselves have been heard in meetings around the country, and in articles and interviews published on the internet. We received an unmediated view of the process from Cuba’s unprecedented release on-line of a two hour meeting where university students challenged Ricardo Alarcon, head of the National Assembly.

President Bush’s advocacy of regime change, instability and disloyalty by the Cuban military and police last October was either one more instance of pandering to the dreams of exiles in Miami or intended to undermine the process of internal reform by heightening Cuban anxieties about US intentions.

Since taking control of Congress, Democratic leaders have offered no challenge to the Administration, despite previous support for ending travel restrictions.

Of the leading Presidential candidates, McCain and Huckabee strive to sound harder line than Bush. Clinton only differs with him on the question of emergency visits by Cuban Americans. Obama offers the beginning of change, supporting unrestricted Cuban American family travel and remittances. Unlike the others, he is prepared to negotiate with Raul Castro without preconditions.

A minimal US response to Fidel Castro’s retirement is reinstatement of the pre 2004 travel regulations of Bill Clinton and George Bush which permitted annual and emergency visits by Cuban Americans. More importantly, it allowed non-tourist purposeful travel by world affairs councils, professional organizations, museums, religious and humanitarian groups, short term study programs, etc.

A more serious step would be to end all travel restrictions so any American could personally evaluate and interact with the transition taking place in Cuba. Only by honoring our own values of freedom, can we actually know what is taking place and provide a supportive atmosphere for Cuban reformers.

An additional benefit will be to our international reputation. Traditional allies in this hemisphere and western Europe see US policy toward Cuba as counterproductive if not obsessed and anachronistic. World opinion was signaled for the sixteenth year when the UN General Assembly condemned our unilateral embargo of Cuba by 184 to 4.

The American people know what needs to happen. Polls show that two-thirds want an end to travel restrictions and normalization of relations. It’s time for our leaders to catch up.

[The author traveled to Cuba in 1971 and annually during the past decade. He founded and heads the Fund for Reconciliation and Development which was actively involved in the normalization of US relations with Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.]

Cuban Student Questions Provoke Diverse Reactions

2008-02-13T11:27:00.000-08:00

Following are links to two sections of a video of an internet interview with students who had questioned Ricardo Alarcon.

While it is hard to draw conclusions based on the BBC's five minute excerpt of the original meeting, it is not difficult from personal experience to credit the authenticity of both encounters. There was obviously a need for Cuba to exercise damage control because of the way the meeting was being interpreted in the world press but the students' comments do not seem forced.

The sequence illustrates the complexity of having frank and open debate in a society which is under unceasing external attack. The defensive tendency in the past was for Cuba to show a face of unanimity and solidarity to the outside world, but the concluding quote from Juventud Rebelde in the IPS article indicates that internal reform has greater priority than fear of foreign enemies. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41168

Without going into details about the UCI students’ meeting with Alarcón,
anarticle in the Juventud Rebelde newspaper said the announced reforms of
theCuban system, considered "a revolution within the revolution," would not
behindered, and that the recent media frenzy would not fuel internal"reactions"
aimed at blocking the reforms.

One can only speculate on the role of the very articulate son of Carlos Lage, head of the Federation of Cuban Students, and on the impact of Alarcon's responses for his prospects in the leadership change that may be announced on February 24th.

Of equal interest to what took place in Cuba is what took place in el exilio in south Florida. The Sun Sentinel ran an editorial suggesting the students' questions showed it was time for the US to reciprocate. www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-editafcubanspeaksbfeb11,0,2986418.story

But if Cubans are willing to speak now, risk potential reprisal later, then the
global community needs to take note and act accordingly. Especially the
United States, which has sat on its hands for way too long. Washington can
do its part by, first, acknowledging publicly that the process germinating
in Cuba is important and desired. Then it can signal its intention to review
its own hard line diplomatic stance if the era of openness in Cuba
progresses.

Others saw the event as proof the end of the regime was approaching and could only understand what took place by leaping to the conclusion that the students had been repressed because of their questions.Most intriguing was Miami Herald columnist Ana Menendez who used the incident predictably to beat up on Havana, but then turned to reflecting on changes needed in her own Miami community.

That the young are boldly confronting the old guard in Cuba, where there is
so much more to risk, should humble us in Miami.

The best way we can support them is to continue to question our own
homegrown orthodoxies -- those tired narratives of bitterness and hatred
that keep us from engaging. And believing.

Interview with the students

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhWm0Aj2xoE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw4pDy-rk-Q&feature=related

the original BBC broadcast segment

http://www.cubaencuentro.com/es/encuentro-en-la-red/ultimos-videos/estudiantes-cuestionan-politicas-del-gobierno-en-encuentro-con-alarcon

video of the complete meeting http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=63203

Letter published in Sun Sentinel re Democratic candidates

2008-01-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

Summary of Democratic candidates' stands on Cuba misses the main point of conflict
January 18, 2008

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-brmail961sbjan18,0,3444871.story

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's summary of Democratic candidates' positions on Cuba is inaccurate and misses the main point of conflict between them.

Barack Obama has called for unrestricted travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans.

John Edwards has agreed with unrestricted travel.

Hillary Clinton supports the harsh once-every-three-years restrictions on family travel imposed by President Bush rather than the annual plus emergency travel permitted by her husband.

None of them has spoken about the non-tourist purposeful travel authorized by President Bill Clinton but largely eliminated in 2004.

When economic and social reforms are being discussed in Cuba, it is a grave error that the United States has eliminated or drastically reduced people-to-people exchanges by world affairs councils, students, professionals, alumni, museums, religious and humanitarian groups, sports teams, etc.

Such visits do not bring the economic benefit to Cuba of large scale tourism but do help diverse American opinion leaders understand better what is really taking place. They also create a more positive atmosphere between our countries, which encourages the process of reform.

John McAuliff

Executive Director, Fund for Reconciliation and Development Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

Congress in 2008

2007-12-31T07:03:00.000-08:00

We began 2007 with a mood of optimism about how much Congress would do about Cuba. After all, bipartisan majorities in both the Republican controlled House and Senate had voted in favor of travel, only to see those victories stolen away by Tom DeLay and other GOP leaders.

The only obstacle after the 2006 election seemed to be a Presidential veto, and even that could be mastered with enough determination by the new Democratic leadership who had voted for travel while in the minority. Instead we ended the year with two losses on secondary issues, no test of travel, and a mood of passivity if not defeatism.

By a recorded vote of 254 to 170 the House in June passed an amendment by Lincoln Diaz-Ballart to restore to the appropriations bill “democracy program” Administration requested funding that had been reduced to $9 million by the Appropriations committee. With the support of 66 Democrats and all but six Republicans, the budget was increased five-fold to $45.7 million--despite a valiant effort by floor manager Nita Lowey. At one level, the vote was largely symbolic. The money is a boondoggle, a classic earmark for a special interest group. It covers unheard and unseen propaganda broadcasts from Radio and TV Marti and a variety of ineffective projects intended to intervene in the domestic affairs of a neighboring sovereign country for the internationally discredited purpose of regime change. (Further details here.)

This budget for 2008 is the equivalent of 70% of the total amount of USAID’s Cuba program between 1996 and 2007 of $65 million. The irony, as pointed out by Tony Zamora and Alfredo Duran, prominent Democrats in Miami, was that the Congress had let itself be maneuvered into appropriating millions of dollars that will in effect be recycled into walking around money for the Republican election machine. I witnessed the intellectual version of that partisan subsidy when I attended a conference on “Cuba: What to Expect” organized by the USAID funded Cuba Transition Project. Watch it for yourself, especially the final panel on US policy, and decide whether it represents use of federal funds to advance a particular political interest.

The second defeat came in a well-intentioned but terribly handled amendment in July by Representative Charles Rangel to the Agriculture bill which sought to eliminate OFAC bureaucratic obstacles to export sales to Cuba. The sponsor’s office openly acknowledges that the language was introduced without any preparation or effort to marshal support from allies and bore unique handicaps. Yet the 182-245 defeat was treated by sympathetic Congressional offices and Cuba advocates as definitive evidence that nothing could be done legislatively before 2009

Explanations of these defeats often focus on the well utilized PAC money and other contributions raised in south Florida and given out to Republicans and Democrats who have few Cuban Americans among their constituents. According to federal election data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the US-Cuba Democracy PA C gave just 29 % to Democrats in 2004, but in 2006 they received 44 % of the $330,000 doled out. The PAC gave a total of $384,500 to federal candidates after the 2006 general election. As reported in The Hill, “Fifty-two of the 66 Democrats who voted against Rangel’s amendment have received one or more contributions from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC since the beginning of the 2007-2008 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. It has given $56,000 to 22 Democratic freshmen this year, and 17 of those freshmen voted against Rangel’s amendment.” . (see further analysis of Ag vote and list of PAC recipients here)

Others focus on the effective negative intervention by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz who has received a total of $22,000 from the Cuba Democracy PAC to her leadership PAC and campaign committee.
She is a liberal Democrat from Ft. Lauderdale who became close to the Diaz-Ballart brothers as a member of the Florida state legislature. Whether she is motivated by anti-Castro ideology or by statewide political ambitions, her views do not reflect either the pro travel positions of the two daily papers that serve her district, the Sun Sentinel and the Miami Herald, or probably those of her constituents who are only 20% Hispanic.

In addition, there is no evidence that the ostensibly pro travel House leadership ever counseled her that carrying water for right wing Republicans was not the best path for an ambitious junior member. None of the House and Senate leaders have responded to the on line letters asking action on family and non-tourist purposeful travel sent to them in October which have now attracted an impressive cross section of 418 signers.

Congressional staff explain the disappointing performance of the Democrats by pointing to the greater national and political priority of frustrated votes on Iraq and health care. Why should the leadership be expected to give priority to Cuba with expectation of a guaranteed veto? In addition, the subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs is chaired by pro-embargo but otherwise liberal Eliot Engel from New York. Even the full Foreign Affairs committee could not be counted on to allow pro travel legislation to reach the floor, despite the record number of 120 cosponsors on HR 654.

Political observers noted that the Democrats are still gun shy of losing Florida in the Presidential race if the hard line Cuban American block becomes alienated, despite the fact that 55% of the community now favors unrestricted travel for all Americans and 64% support returning to pre-2004 rules. An alternative interpretation takes account of this opinion shift and of the evolving political loyalties of Cuban Americans , arguing that forcing President Bush and Congressional Republicans to oppose family travel in the actual election year will have a greater impact on Cuban American swing voters.

The traditional key actors on Cuba may also have been affected by Presidential candidate loyalties. Representatives Charles Rangel and Jim McGovern are backing Hillary Clinton. A vote against travel consistent with her campaign position would not have helped Senator Clinton's appeal to liberals.

Representative Bill Delahunt announced in lateDecember that he is backing Barack Obama whose pro-family travel only campaign position is consistent with Delahunt’s bill, HR 757. Delahunt did not hold anticipated hearings either on the scandalous waste of Cuba Democracy funding or on family travel in 2007. Tactically, there will be more reason for him to do so in 2008, especially if Obama is leading or at least is still a viable candidate. Dramatic hearings and a floor vote on family travel could also contribute directly to the effort to defeat the Diaz-Ballart brothers.

Three Congressional initiatives did lay the groundwork intellectually for policy change. First came the Government Accounting Office (GAO) report in November 2006 on the misuse of Cuba democracy funds, requested by Representatives Delahunt and Jeff Flake. The International Trade Commission produced a report in July 2007 at the request of Sen. Max Baucus that demonstrated conclusively the substantial economic benefit to US farmers, manufacturers and travel agents of ending the embargo (Investigation No. 332—489). In addition, Representatives Rangel and Barbara Lee obtained a dramatic report from the General Accounting Office in December which demonstrated conclusively that OFAC and Miami airport inspectors were spending a disproportionate amount of time and staff energy on the fruitless task of sustaining travel restrictions and blocking import of souvenirs.

Regrettably this report, and an excellent hearing held by Senator Baucus were buried in the pre holiday end of session crunch. Nevertheless, the documentation is available if legislators find reason to make use of it, either because of their own political agenda or because angry and weighty constituents remonstrate with them about the sorry showing of 2007. (Representatives and Senators will be home until January 15th.)

The future attitude of Congress may be shaped by two local races in Florida with national implications. Lincoln Diaz-Balart is likely to face a challenge from the very popular former mayor of Hialeah. Younger brother Mario could be taken on by Joe Garcia (see draft Joe web site and a very well done campaign commercial). Family travel is likely to be a big issue in both races, and may prove decisive. The Congressional battle is likely to have an impact on the Presidential race, particularly if Obama is the nominee or Clinton retools her position away from its current Bush-light stance.

The defeat of two Congressmen with family ties to the Batista regime will have national impact as it will symbolize the decline of the Cuban American dinosaurs. The ardor of Wasserman Schultz is likely to cool and a Democratic President inclined to policy change will be dealing with a more sympathetic Congress.

Pro travel forces outside of south Florida will be solicited for donations to the campaign to replace the Diaz-Ballarts. While their replacement will be widely welcomed, the enthusiasm of non-Cuban Americans will no doubt be greater if the candidates publicly extend their support to all travel or at least to pre-2004 non-tourist people to people exchanges.

Some long time normalization activists will have trouble with Garcia’s former role as the highly visible director of the Cuban American National Foundation as well as by his overtly anti-regime rhetoric. However, my own view is that the only way we can win travel is to bring together all those favoring change in US policy on Cuba, regardless of their history, politics, motivation and immediate goals.

We will face the same dilemma about legislation. My strong preference is that Delahunt expand his legislation to include non-tourist travel because that will broaden the base of national support and have a much bigger impact on the evolution of US-Cuba relations. As vital as family travel is for both humanitarian and tactical reasons, it will do relatively little to impact mainstream US public opinion and to create a favorable atmosphere for the remarkable debate underway in Cuba about future economic and social policy.

We must open the door to wide ranging people to people exchanges in 2008 not wait until 2009. Visits once again by tens of thousands of Americans from world affairs councils, cultural and university groups, professional and business organizations, performers and sports teams, high school and college students, humanitarian and religious delegations, etc. will provide the kind of informal trust building and familiarization that are essential for a real change by the next President.

--John McAuliff

Changing facts on the ground

2007-12-30T18:20:00.000-08:00

Recent American history offers the relevant lesson of the civil rights and draft resistance movements. When a fundamental right is denied for reasons of narrow prejudice and political self-interest, those affected are morally justified in its exercise regardless of bureaucratic regulations. When enough people do so, regulations will follow because nothing sustains them but inertia and opportunism.

A new GAO report estimates that 120,000 unlicensed American travel to Cuba annually through third countries. The Cubans say some 40,000 Americans (not including Cuban Americans) will come in 2007, many if not most without benefit of a license.

An even greater number of Cuban Americans will go. Some have followed the third country route or unashamedly used fraudulent religious licenses. The most notorious example saw criminal prosecution and guilty pleas from profiteering organizers, but no action against the 4500 Cuban Americans who knowingly perjured themselves claiming to be members of non-existent churches.

If Americans who developed friendships and professional ties while participating in licensed non-tourist trips during the later Clinton and early Bush years just went, as did students on spring break and others among the 40% of Americans who want to vacation in Cuba, travel restrictions would become history. Even today, the only weapon OFAC has is fear, convincing violators to passively accept a negotiated lesser fine. Cases of those who insist on their right to a hearing are not moving at all.

As part of a conscientious non-cooperation campaign, retuning Americans should not hide their travel to Cuba. But even those who prefer to take their chances on getting caught will contribute to the unenforceability of illegitimate restrictions on basic freedoms if they are aware of and act upon their right to demand a hearing.

Congress and an incoming administration will have to address travel because bureaucratically and politically they have no choice.

As the GAO Report said:

"Several U.S. organizations have engaged in acts of civil disobedience against the embargo, such as refusing to apply for licenses for religious travel or humanitarian exports to Cuba, claiming that in their view the U.S. embargo violates protected constitutional, human, or religious rights. Agency officials told us that before 2005, they had unilaterally issued licenses to at least one of these groups to deliver humanitarian exports to Cuba and that the decision in 2005 to enforce the restrictions against these groups strictly created an enforcement and public relations dilemna.”

Imagine their dilemma if it was more than several organizations!

November Perspective on US-Cuba Relations

2007-11-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

November 2007:
The President Plays Mind Games, Congress Immobilized, Americans Change the Rules

by John McAuliff

The President's speech on Cuba policy at the State Department on October 24th has been greeted with widespread criticism and editorial derision. Before it was delivered, there were rumors that he would either crack down on thinly veiled violations of travel restrictions by thousands of Cuban Americans or restore family travel to the pre-2004 mode. He did neither.

In fact, it was not immediately clear what his purpose was. Much of what he said simply recycled irrelevant and presumptuous Cuba transition documents. His concrete proposals for donated computers, scholarships and an international fund were saccharine coating for regime change tactics and can not have been intended to be taken seriously, even as propaganda. His appeal for international support was answered within days when the UN for the 16th year adopted a resolution opposing the unilateral US embargo--by a record vote of 184 to 4.

Mr. Bush’s only substantive points were provocative, that the US was now less interested in stability and that the Cuban military and security forces should be disloyal.

Does he now buy into Miami fantasies about post-Fidel rebellion and contemplate a third or fourth front for US military intervention? Or does he put pandering to the hard right above saving the Republican vote in south Florida? (The Administration’s harsh cut-back of family travel is very unpopular as indicated by public opinion polls and the tendency of new Cuban American voters to register independent or Democrat.)

Two people who have a personal stake in what the President said interpreted it this way:

A prominent Cuban-American academic in Miami whose work is well funded by USAID:

Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, said Bush's choice of the State Department as the speech venue sent a signal to those in the foreign service who may want to soften Cuba policy...''Certain elements of the bureaucracy may not be following the president's policies on Cuba,'' said Suchlicki, ...``They are concerned about mass migration. They want stability in Cuba and are not pushing the envelope for change.'' Bush settled the issue when he said: 'The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not `stability.' The operative word is 'freedom.' ''

--from "Bush echoed Miamians' words in Cuba speech" by Alfonso Chardy, The Miami Herald - Posted October 26

A prominent Cuban dissident in Havana:

Oscar Espinosa Chepe, economist and former prisoner:
"Instead of encouraging the changes that at this moment are debated within the government, changes that are possible though not certain, [Washington] reinforces the sectors that don't want any reform." In his opinion, Bush should have authorized travel to Cuba by the exiles, instead of maintaining and tightening the embargo because of the upcoming elections. "It seems there is a Holy Alliance between those who -- in Cuba and the U.S. -- don't want anything to change."

-- from El Pais Newspaper of Spain, "Bush hallucinates," by Mauricio Vicent, Oct. 26, as cited on line by Progresso Weekly

Suchliki is deluded by his own wishful thinking and Chepe is closer to the mark.

Presumably some people in the rearguard Miami elite and the US government recognize the potential of Raul Castro enabling significant Vietnam-style reform, producing rapid agricultural and economic progress. This could be coupled with deeper ties to the dominant trend in Latin America, a broad-based market-friendly left.

While most Americans might see such evolutionary changes in Cuba as a good thing and in our national interest, significant economic reforms and closer ties in the Hemisphere will be the death knell for the dreams of the ultras in Miami and their ideological allies in Washington.

I believe that the real goal of the President's speech was to provoke the more orthodox and cautious sector of leaders in Cuba to oppose the surprisingly open and wide-ranging debate that Raul Castro has launched, and to push them to block any serious reform initiatives in agriculture, small business and the media. The orthodox will be motivated to argue that the aggressive tone of Bush's speech must be taken seriously. They will fear that US promotion of instability is more likely to find vulnerabilities in national unity during a process of public criticism and socio-economic experiment. At the least, they will say, let’s play it safe and wait until Bush is gone and we see the attitude of his successor.

No doubt other leaders will argue that ignoring real problems actually makes Cuba more susceptible to outside interference, and that viewpoint will probably win.

However, we have seen in the past that Cuban reactions to pressure can be as counter-productive as conventional wisdom is in the US. Cases in point: the shoot down of the deliberately provocative Brothers to the Rescue flights; the crackdown on dissidents because of the intentionally provocative role with them of Jim Caison, head of the US Interests Section. The former had a dramatic impact on the Clinton Administration and Congress, leading to passage of the Helms-Burton law. The latter substantially diminished Congressional support for moderation of the embargo.

Congress and the American People

A few members of Congress and Democratic presidential candidates gave appropriately critical responses to President Bush’s speech. However, to my knowledge, the House and Senate leadership were silent.

Moreover, there is no indication that the Democrats are prepared to take advantage of the weakness of the Administration on this issue. They are leaving in the State Department appropriations bill $47 million of “democracy funding” which in part assists Miami Republicans in the 2008 election and in part subsidizes conservative propaganda aimed at Americans.

Congressional leaders are not challenging the President to veto a bill that reflects the desire of nearly two-thirds of Americans for normal relations. They have done nothing to bring to the floor legislation to regain the Constitutional right of travel for the 40 % who want to visit Cuba—even though it has 120 cosponsors in the House and 23 in the Senate. Despite the special benefit of track 2 style dialog during a period of far-reaching domestic debate, Democrats are not restoring travel that was possible during the Clinton Administration for non-tourist purposes such as academic, humanitarian, religious, cultural, professional and people to people exchanges. Congress has even turned its back on the least controversial humanitarian cause of Cuban American family reunion.

One consequence of the President’s extremism and Congressional inaction is that constituent anger over draconian restrictions on family travel is putting at risk the reelection of one of more of Miami’s Cuban American Republican Representatives. Should the Democrats win, it will echo in Washington.

In the meantime, Americans are increasingly voting with their feet and the Bush Administration can do little about this spontaneous grass roots resistance. While mainstream religious institutions have lost their licenses, thousands of Cuban Americans have gone on fraudulent or dubious religious trips, or simply traveled unimpeded through third countries. The US Attorney’s office in Miami successfully won guilty pleas last month from the creators of blatantly phony churches, but neither it nor the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) seem disposed to act against the 4,500 Cuban Americans who paid to use those licenses.

In addition, an estimated 40,000 other Americans will travel to Cuba this year, most without the approval of OFAC. They have found it is easy to book tickets and receive a tourist visa to Cuba from travel agents in a dozen countries with direct flight connections, and know that the Cubans do not stamp US passports. If suspected by US immigration authorities, unlicensed travelers may receive a letter from OFAC threatening a fine for violation of regulations. However, if they appeal for a hearing, nothing else happens because the administrative judge process has ground to a halt with an unmanageable backlog of individual and group cases.

As information spreads by word of mouth and through the internet that travel restrictions cannot be enforced and how simple it is to go, more Americans will no longer wait to see Cuba. Some will do this as an act of principled non-cooperation, the exercise of one more fundamental Constitutional right that has been compromised by a discredited lame-duck Administration, this time for purely partisan political reasons. Others will simply want to beat the rush of a million American tourists predicted for the first year after the next President officially ends travel restrictions.

If the Democrats win the 2008 Presidential election, the failure of the current Congress to act on travel will leave the new Administration with the immediate choice of either harassing tens of thousands of its supporters, or quickly moving to clean up one more mess left by the Bush Administration.

Dissident Arrests and Their Impact

2007-10-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

The following paragraph was included in an article about US agricuttural sales to Cuba, and prompted my response to the author.

"The following year, the regime imprisoned dozens of dissidents and journalists, and three men were executed after trying to hijack a ferry to leave Cuba. Support for loosening the trade embargo seemed to evaporate in Congress."

I would urge you to look a little more deeply into history rather than just accept the Administration's interpretation--or the conventional wisdom in Miami.

US policy was dominated during this period by hard right regime change advocates (Reich, Noriega). Their front line operative was the head of the US Interests Section, Jim Cason, whose aggressive role in direct support of dissidents would not have been undertaken by a US ambassador anywhere else in the world--and puzzled the Western diplomatic community in Havana.

Caison set up the dissident community, which he had to know was deeply infiltrated by Cuban intelligence, for a completely predictable crackdown. Cuban nationalists have been sensitive about US interference since the time of the Spanish American war and the Platt Amendment. If our government in the wake of 9/11 was prepared to shred traditional constitutional protections, it is hardly a surprise that an authoritarian regime would come down heavily on people whom it saw as complicit with the neighboring superpower that was newly recommitted to its destruction.

Whether this was simply another example of neo-con arrogance and indifference to history and the fate of local allies, or a subtle strategy to undermine the growing support in Congress for a new bilateral relationship, will only be known when classified diplomatic traffic is leaked or released.

The Cubans fell into the trap. I make no brief for the arrests or "show trials" of the 75, but I think there is evidence that they went after dissidents who were receiving some form of payment or reward from the US government, and were therefore seen to be its agents, and left other dissidents,such as Oswaldo Paya himself, undisturbed.

The only reason I go into this now is the necessity of having a more objective view (and balanced journalism) of our problematic shared history if there is any desire to untangle nearly fifty hears of hostility and misunderstanding and ameliorate the situation of its victims--families kept apart by absurd government policies, 59 of 75 dissidents still held, the harsh imprisonment of the Cuban 5, etc..

Campaign Newsletter Notes on Internal Change

2007-10-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2007

Havana is Changing Faster than Washington

What Happens When Fidel Castro is No Longer the Issue?

The obsession of the US media and political leaders with Fidel Castro makes our country completely oblivious to the significant transition underway in Cuba, The ultra wing of the Cuban American community has diminishing influence locally but dominates the national dialog.

Their frantic insistence (funded in part by our taxes) that Raul Castro offers no real change prevents the US from understanding or making a positive contribution to the process. (Phil Peters of the conservative Lexington Institute is especially insightful about the significance of what is happening. Check out his latest analysis here.)

Frank grass roots discussions now underway in Cuba reflect the complexity and the ferment that those of us who manage to get there despite travel restrictions have seen. Keeping the rest of you away from that reality has been a prime goal of the Miami ultras and the compliant Bush Administration. The last thing they want is internal reform that responds to the people of Cuba themselves.

For opposite reasons, both Washington and Havana insist that the US can play no positive role in Cuba's evolution. The former rejects any change that does not fit into its ideological model as meaningless, and the latter feels national survival depends on preserving sovereign independence from even well meaning US interference.

My own view is that hostile US demands and even overt expectations of regime change in response to a US opening, makes natural evolution in Cuba more difficult. US assertions of a desire to help carry the baggage of ideology and history. The watchword should be "do no harm". Treat Cuba as a normal country. Disagree, criticize, but respect!

When Fidel Castro is unalterably absent from Cuba's leadership, the ultras will dance in Miami's streets and indulge in fantasies of popular uprising and US intervention. The moderates in Washington and Miami will insist that existing policies be maintained until the picture is clearer in Cuba, i.e. negative sanctions must be kept in place. Other voices must be prepared to say the time for reform in US policy is also at hand and that ending all restrictions on travel is the place to start. Articles on Cuba's Internally Led Reforms

***************************

June 24, 2007

Vietnam and Cuba What was the difference again?

A personal observation, based on thirty two years of work with post-war Viet Nam...

Three weeks before President Bush held a cordial meeting in the White House with Viet Nam's President Triet, Cuba's President Castro met Viet Nam's Party Secretary Manh in Havana.

I have heard from Vietnamese friends that Castro told Manh the reason Cuba could not follow Viet Nam's path of market reform was the hostility and threat from the US.

President Clinton ended the unilateral US embargo of economic and diplomatic relations with Viet Nam in 1995. The US is now Viet Nam's largest trading partner ($10 billion per year) and one of its biggest investors.

Politically and legally there is not much difference between the two countries. Both are one party states that use controversial legal practices to curtail organized political opposition. A particular concern are groups linked to antagonistic exiles in the US.

Day to day life and personal freedom in Viet Nam liberalized considerably, and the most substantial economic reforms took place, after the US established normal non-hostile relations. Hard line Vietnamese- American leaders have opposed every step of normalization, including President Triet's visit.

Implications of Raul Castro's July 26 Speech

2007-09-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with a knowledgeable Cuban friend at the LASA conference who said the Party and Government will call for public discussion of Raul Castro's July 26th speech.

The speech (see article) is worth reading carefully and between the lines. The decision to give it special national attention says much about how the process of internally defined change is going forward. (see complete text)

Governments, whether socialist or capitalist, seldom explicitly state that they are engaged in a systemic change since that creates confrontation with their own history and those leaders identified it.

In Cuba the issue is more sensitive due to the active engagement of the founding father who seems to have some discomfort with where things are going.

Without wanting to argue the situations are identical, my experience with Vietnam's self-transformation is that the last thing to change is the public vocabulary and ideological justification of actions. Words are even more carefully parsed when a country is under great pressure from outside forces.

Cubans will never publicly say that removal or amelioration of US hostility is a factor in the scope and pace of debate and reform, because that suggests compromised independence and sovereignty. Nevertheless, I think people in the US, whether they are sympathetic or antagonistic to Cuba as it exists today, should recognize that we do have the option of contributing positively to the process by simply backing off and eliminating or reducing the abnormal state of bilateral.relations.

Normalization Process with Viet Nam (Cuba Implications)

2007-05-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Normalization Process with Viet Nam
(With Implicit Implications for Cuba)

John McAuliff, Executive Director
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

National Summit on Cuba, Coral Gables, Florida, October 4, 2003

“Even at the point the U.S. ended its embargo, Vietnam was still largely a command economy,
dominated by state enterprises and centralized bureaucratic controls.”

Immediately before coming to this Summit, I participated in a two-day conference in
Washington on the “Future of Relations Between Vietnam and the United States.” It was
opened by Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien and closed by Assistant Secretary of
State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly.

Vietnamese participants included the vice chair of the External Relations Committee of the
National Assembly; and representatives of the Ministries of Trade, Foreign Affairs, Public
Security, and Defense, as well as of the ruling Communist Party. On the American side were
present the U.S. Ambassador to Hanoi, Congressional staff, and representatives of the Defense
Department, the business community, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and
educational institutions.

Today, the U.S. is the largest purchaser of Vietnamese exports, totaling $4 billion this year;
and the largest source of tourists except for China, an immediate neighbor. The goal of the
conference, in the words of Vietnam’s Foreign Minister, was to “put in place a practical and
strategic foundation for our partnership in many years to come.”

Twenty-eight years ago a war ended that took the lives of 56,000 Americans and more than
2,000,000 Vietnamese. It left the U.S. deeply divided after the most profound fracture of our
body politic since the Civil War.

Until nine years ago the U.S. enforced a rigid economic embargo against Vietnam,
implemented zealously by some of the same people who lead OFAC (The Department of
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control) today. The U.S. and Vietnam did not have
diplomatic relations until eight years ago. We did not exchange ambassadors until six years
ago when Floridian, former Congressman, and former prisoner of war Pete Peterson was posted in Hanoi.

What happened? Has Vietnam stopped being Communist? Has it become a multiparty
democracy? Does it allow public opposition to its political system, in person, in the press or on
the internet? No, none of the above. What happened was that during the administration of the first President Bush the two governments began to see the futility and mutual disadvantage of noncommunication and non-cooperation. President Bush was blocked from making much concrete
progress by Republicans, still embittered by the loss of the war (such as Henry Kissinger), but
he did end travel restrictions in 1991 and laid the bipartisan foundation on which President
Clinton built the structures of normalization.

The process required compromise on both sides, and a lowering of the rhetorical temperature,
but it did not require a change in the political or economic system of either country or do
damage to their self-perceived national interests. Vietnam had to cooperate with the
emotionally charged task of the resolution of some 2,600 cases of American military missing in
action (MIA) even while it had little ability to accommodate domestic demands for the
accounting of at least ten times that number of Vietnamese MIAs. (While Americans care
strongly about securing our war dead, the treatment of remains within Vietnamese culture has
even greater significance because of religious reverence for ancestors.)

MIA identification and retrieval was accomplished through the permanent stationing of U.S.
military teams in Hanoi and exhaustive joint searches of crash sights for remains and secret
military archives for information. The Vietnamese received more than adequate compensation
for the use of their helicopters and labor force. More importantly, they obtained official U.S.
acknowledgement that Vietnam too had humanitarian needs created by the war and
subsequently some financial assistance for children and other victims.

Vietnam was also required by the “road map” to normalization to withdraw its remaining
military forces from Cambodia. However, that posed no problem because Vietnam had
accomplished its goal of eliminating the threat posed by the Khmer Rouge and was in the
process of reaching an accommodation with the Khmer Rouge’s primary ally China.
What did the U.S. give up? Fundamentally American leaders lost the emotional and political
satisfaction of punishing Vietnam for winning the war through a largely unilateral economic
embargo (does that sound familiar?) and partial political isolation. U.S. officials also had to be
willing, based on Vietnamese cooperation on the real issue of MIA remains, to walk away from
the fervent belief among some veterans and conservatives that Hanoi still held living prisoners
of war (POWs).

This process of mutual accommodation was assisted by a change in the international political
situation. The transformation of the Soviet Union into the weakened Russian Federation meant
that the U.S. no longer received strategic advantage from using Cambodia and Vietnam to
inflame the conflict between the Soviets and Chinese. Moreover, the withdrawal of
Vietnamese forces from Cambodia in 1998 and the subsequent Paris Agreement were already
opening the door to trade, investment and stronger political ties of Vietnam with Europe,
Japan, and its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Vietnam had also made a fundamental internal decision at the Sixth Party Congress in 1986, a
year before the end of the Soviet Union, to move away from a command economy and to enter
the capitalist world market. It carefully introduced small-scale private enterprise at the family
level, in both urban and rural settings. The most dramatic result was that in a year or two
Vietnam went from a country with food shortages and pockets of starvation to the third largest
rice exporter in the world.

It should be noted that at no point did the Communist Party contemplate giving up its
monopoly on political power and leadership, although it did strive with some success through
the economic reforms and a process of “doi moi,” or renovation, to restore its credentials and
popularity with the people and party members. It is also important to recognize that in the
initial years of reform strenuous and sometimes paradoxical efforts were made to fit changes
into the official ideological rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh thought.

The process of change in the U.S. owes much to the election of the first President who had
been part of the anti-war movement, although he had not been a leader or even a prominent
activist. Bill Clinton moved quickly through the stages of normalization of relations beginning
with the end of the embargo soon after taking office, and ending with the signing of a bilateral
trade agreement and official visit to Vietnam shortly before the end of his second term. In this
process, he received indispensable assistance from Vietnam War veterans in the Congress.
Some like Senator John Kerry had been part of the veterans’ movement against the war; others
like Senator McCain had not. But for a variety of reasons, they wanted the kind of closure on
their war time experience that could only come from ending the hostile atmosphere that still
existed between the U.S. and Vietnam.

Only a few veterans in Congress opposed normalization, although some supporters justified
their position on the familiar grounds that opening the door would inevitably lead to a free
market and political change within Vietnam and in that sense a kind of victory for the U.S.
While some leaders in Vietnam echoed China’s warning of an American plot to achieve
peaceful evolution, others saw normalization as an affirmation of their success in achieving Ho
Chi Minh’s dictum that, “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.”
The process of normalization received important support from U.S. based multinational
corporations that did not wish to be closed out of the thirteenth largest country in the world.
U.S. NGOs also played a noteworthy role with public opinion in both countries. Their style of
work allayed suspicion within Vietnam as they carried out a growing number of programs of
humanitarian and development assistance and helped to humanize the Vietnamese to skeptical
Americans.

Vietnamese-Americans were divided about normalization. The official position of their
newspapers and political and social organizations was largely against reconciliation between
their adopted and native countries, but in practice many Vietnamese were already coming to
terms with separation from their homeland.

During the first two decades after the refugee arrival in the U.S., violence had been directed
against members of the community who advocated normalization. However, that largely
dissipated as more and more Vietnamese visited home and Vietnam’s government made
greater efforts to establish positive contact with them. Today Vietnamese Americans form the
largest segment of the stream of U.S. tourists. They are investing in small and large
businesses.

Vietnamese Americans are moving home after retirement. Their children and grandchildren
are rediscovering their roots and finding jobs with foreign companies where bilingual bicultural
skills are very welcome.

The process of normalization between Vietnam and the U.S. has been multidimensional. In
addition to diplomatic ties that included an exchange of trade offices and military attachés, the
U.S. has had a very active Fulbright scholarship program that predated full establishment of
relations. Many American educational institutions have links with Vietnamese counterparts
and there are some 2,500 Vietnamese studying in the U.S. today.

Economic evolution in Vietnam was gradual and saw both advances and retreats. The political
and economic atmosphere outside the country played a role in the process, but more significant
was Vietnam’s commitment to remain in control of the process of change. Having paid such a
high price to achieve national independence and freedom, they were not about to see their
country dominated by foreign investors and corporations.

The late 80’s were a period of experimentation, learning by doing, and gradual broadening of
the realm of market economics. Even at the point the U.S. ended its embargo, Vietnam was
still largely a command economy, dominated by state enterprises and centralized bureaucratic
controls. While the foreign investment code was in theory quite liberal, practice lagged far
behind. Foreign companies could only enter the Vietnamese market in cumbersome joint
venture arrangements. Many individual entrepreneurs from the U.S. as well as large
companies jumped into Vietnam only to find their expectations frustrated by cultural and
institutional barriers. Some withdrew in the late 90’s. Others stayed and eventually prospered.
The Vietnamese learned from both failures and successes, responded to criticisms from
international business, and extended to indigenous companies the same legal rights afforded to
foreigners.

Vietnam only completed a law providing an adequate legal framework for local business in the
year 2000, but the National Assembly enacted it in close consultation with the emerging
private sector. Today Vietnam has over 30,000 private companies and they are acknowledged
by the government as the primary source of economic growth and job creation. Inefficient
state enterprises are being shut down or liquidated. Vietnam’s economy is growing at a steady
and impressive rate, and it is seen as the success story of Southeast Asia.

There are also substantial changes within Vietnam’s civil society and political institutions that
parallel and may be responsive to changes in political and economic relationships with other
countries. Domestic NGOs, the press, personal freedom, election reform, and the role of the
national assembly are all evolving positively in a Vietnamese way. This is not to say that
Vietnam is without problems domestically or in its bilateral relations with the U.S.. The two
countries have obvious disagreements about political systems and concepts of human rights.
The U.S. House of Representatives has adopted “human rights” legislation that Vietnam finds
an unacceptable interference in its internal affairs. While the practice of religion is completely
free in Vietnam, the social and political role of religious institutions and leadership is regulated
and supervised. This prompts harsh criticism from conservatives and evangelicals in the U.S.
Vietnam has more Catholic bishops today than at any time in its history, but is angry at the
Vatican for appointing a cardinal without prior consultation.

However both sides at the conference I attended in Washington expressed amazement at how
far and how fast the relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam had progressed. While
government to government partnership today is more aspiration than reality, it is not
impossible to envision. Needless to say the whole process offers intriguing hints of what could
develop between the U.S. and Cuba if the current irrationality, fear, distrust, and boneheadedness
on both sides were put to rest.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/uscuba/summitarchive.html

Full version of Op Ed article

2007-05-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Prior to the 2004 Presidential election, the Bush Administration responded to pressure from Cuban American political leaders in Florida to roll back opportunities for non-tourist “purposeful” travel to Cuba that had been opened by the Clinton Administration. This action was based on the false accusation that such programs served as a cover for tourism and provided significant economic support for the Cuban government.

The retreat on freedom to travel had devastating humanitarian consequences for Cuban Americans. Previously they had been able to make one authorized visit per year to their extended family, with unlimited additional opportunities for emergency travel for health or other compelling reasons. Now they can only visit members of their immediate family and must be very cautious about timing. If, for example one’s father is seriously ill, and after several months passes away, one must choose between a visit during his final months or for his funeral. If one’s mother passes away the following year, tough! And if an aunt who had actually reared you because your parents were in Miami took gravely ill? Also tough!

As a result of the same draconian policy, a wide variety of American educational, cultural, people-to-people, sports, religious, humanitarian, professional and foreign affairs institutions no longer were able to obtain licenses for familiarization visits and exchanges with counterparts.

While some specific and general licenses are still granted, the authorized categories and total number have been drastically reduced.

Anthony Zamorra, a prominent Cuban American lawyer with Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP who formerly served as Counsel to the Cuban American National Foundation, reports the antipathy to travel by hard line leaders in his community is based on two factors. First, the substantial growth of visits by Cuban Americans and non-partisan mainstream US citizens was undermining the one dimensional negative image of Cuba they needed to maintain control over US policy. Second, the traffic was generating resources to travel agents and charter flight operators being used to push for further liberalization of US policy toward Cuba.

Bipartisan sentiment in the Republican controlled Congress sought to end travel restrictions via amendment to the Treasury Appropriations bill. The goal was to deny funding for enforcement of sanctions against travelers. However, majority support in both Houses was frustrated by leadership maneuvers behind closed doors, justified by the threat of a Presidential veto.

Democratic majorities offer a new opportunity for legislative remedy. In particular, a bill submitted in January by Representative Charles Rangel (HR 654)* with Representative Jeff Flake will end restrictions on travel to Cuba by all Americans. To date it has attracted 103 bipartisan cosponsors. Because of the ripeness of the issue and Rangel’s seniority, prestige and status as Chair of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, support will continue to grow. Two months later Senators Michael Enzi and Byron Dorgan submitted comparable legislation (S 721) that has already attracted twenty bipartisan cosponsors including Chuck Hagel and Jim Webb.

In principle this is a policy in consonance with the traditional values of the United States rather than with the restrictions Cuba places on travel by its own citizens. As Justice William.O. Douglas wrote for Supreme Court majorities in 1964 and 1965:

“Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society…Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer. “, and

“The right to know, to converse with others, to consult with them, to observe social, physical, political, and other phenomena abroad as well as at home gives meaning and substance to freedom of expression and freedom of the press.”

In practice large scale visits by Americans to Cuba will have a substantial impact on our nation’s ability to understand and have a positive impact on the process of transition that is underway.

Visits by tens and even hundreds of thousands of Americans will not have a big economic effect on Cuba in the short term. Hotel rooms that are currently full with Europeans, Canadians and Latin Americans will simply change their clientele. Any overflow will fuel a boom economy in the private sector of private homes that rent one or two rooms (casas particulares). Informal interaction by average Americans with average Cubans will be diverse and unsupervised. Structured interaction with professional counterparts will build on relationships established during the late Clinton and early Bush Administrations and contribute to the surprisingly open discussions of economic change and culture that have begun to take place under Raul Castro.

The Rangel and Enzi bills have been endorsed by over 1500 diverse representatives of the American academic, religious and humanitarian communities. Not least among the signers of an on-line statement of support* is Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, who served the Clinton and Bush Administrations as head of the US Interests Section in Havana.

Ending travel restrictions can help bring the US to a position more in accord with our allies in the Western Hemisphere and Europe, who regard us as at best obsessed and at worst mean spirited in our fruitless efforts to isolate and punish Cuba. If the US wishes to support and engage with exponents of more moderate modes of social change in Latin America than that proffered by Hugo Chavez, ironically it can best do so by ceasing its own extremism and moving toward a rational less vindictive relationship with his closest ally Cuba.

Much of my professional career has been devoted to bringing about normal relations between the US and its former adversaries in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos. When I began my work, we enforced unilateral embargoes and had no diplomatic relations with the first two, and very limited contact with the third. Antagonism, suspicion and hostile rhetoric resulting from grievous human and social legacies of war were more pronounced on both sides of the divide than they have ever been with Cuba.

Yet in conjunction with normalization with the US, all three countries have moved deliberately and successfully from command to market economies. The personal freedoms and democratic participation of their citizens have steadily increased, although even now their political cultures are more like Cuba’s than ours. Viet Nam in particular has growing strategic ties to the US. Based on visits to Cuba during the past decade, I see no reason that the same mutually beneficial process could not take place between our neighboring countries.

John McAuliff
Executive Director, Fund for Reconciliation and Development

* The statement and signers may be seen at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubatravelbill/ To see the full text of proposed legislation, go to http://thomas.loc.gov Type in "HR 654" and “S 721” in the box provided.

2007—The Year of Transition … in US-Cuba Relations

2007-04-12T21:36:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Freedom to travel to Cuba can be achieved this year. A new political context in both Washington and Havana offer unprecedented opportunity for real progress.

Representatives Charles Rangel along with Representative Jeff Flake, Representative Bill Delahunt and the leadership of the bipartisan Cuba Working Group have submitted HR 654 that restores to Americans one of our most fundamental liberties. (To see text, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type in “HR 654”.)

House members already sympathetic need to become cosponsors of 654 to create momentum and attract the attention of the media. Those who are undecided or even skeptical must come to recognize that the issue matters to their own constituents.

It is now up to each of us whether an historic opportunity to restore our rights and open the door to reasonable bilateral relations is realized or missed.

What is covered by HR 654?

“the President shall not regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly, travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or legal residents, or any of the transactions incident to such travel“

That means no licensing by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, no requirement to use only travel agents who are registered Travel Service Providers, and no other Administration obstacles to travel at any time. Beneficiaries will include Cuban Americans, universities, high schools, people-to- people groups, religious and humanitarian organizations, farmers, businesses exploring post- embargo opportunities, Councils on World Affairs, athletic teams, performers, museums, tourists, etc.

The legislation will allow use of credit cards, but does not lift the embargo on trade and investment, in fact, “does not authorize the importation into the United States of any goods for personal consumption acquired in Cuba.” (No rum, no cigars, but artistic products are OK. Handicrafts?)

Challenges

Two-thirds of Americans favor normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba according to a December Gallup poll.

Does that mean you can plan a trip to Cuba for this summer or next winter? At least you could start thinking about it. But we cannot be overconfident.

Democratic control of the House and Senate allows the procedural possibility of stand alone legislation or an amendment that truly ends all travel restrictions, but the bill must still get through committee and receive bipartisan majority support of the Congress. Always looming will be the threat of a Presidential veto, unless the bill receives a two-thirds vote. However, a White House preoccupied by an unpopular war in Iraq plus legislative creativity may make such a confrontation less likely.

Impact on Cuba and the US

A peaceful and orderly leadership transition is well underway in Cuba according to virtually all experts and journalists. Articles in mainstream publications report a pragmatic direction in economic reform and greater openness to public debate about policy. (Illustrative accounts may be found at http://uscubanormalization.blogspot.com/ )

Hard liners in the US who had expected that Fidel Castro’s absence from power would lead to chaos and a reason for US military intervention are increasingly marginalized, except by the media. Still at play are efforts by more moderate opponents to make changes in travel and other US policy contingent on changes in Cuba.

I think that would be a mistake. An end to travel restrictions is first and foremost in our interest as an expression of American values. Secondly, the ability of Congress to reform this policy will be seen in Cuba as evidence that the US is no longer dominated by rigid advocates of regime change.

Finally, we can only speculate how the free access to Cuba of tens and then hundreds of thousands of Americans will affect the people of both countries in economic, cultural, and political terms. Fundamentally, it is a question of creating space in which natural mutually respectful change can take place.

Personal reflections

In December the US finally completed the process of normalization of relations with Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia when the Congress with the support of President Bush adopted Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Hanoi. The American war in Indochina ended 31 years before that. Today the US is Viet Nam's primary export market and foreign investor--and second only to China as a source of tourists.

With allowances for historical and cultural differences, Viet Nam's political and legal system is similar to Cuba's. Its economic system is quite different, but the market economy only flourished after President Clinton ended a unilateral US embargo and established diplomatic relations.

Having spent much of the past three decades working to normalize US relations with Indochina, my more recent similar work about Cuba is based on confidence that communication leads to understanding which leads to change which leads to communication and the whole process renews itself at higher and higher levels.

Let's get rid of travel restrictions, the primary obstacle to communication, in 2007 before the pursuit of Florida's electoral votes once again obscures national interest and rational policy making.

My Comments on Miami Travel Arrests

2007-04-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Sunday, February 25, 2007

The Associated Press reported on February 23d that, "two men were arrested and charged with using fake religious organizations to get thousands of people permission to travel to Cuba". The Florida case alleges that some 6500 persons made illegal trips. Most are presumed to have been Cuban American.

http://uscubanormalization.blogspot.com/2007/02/arrests-in-miami-on-travel-related.html

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, is quoted in the Miami Herald as confirming the political goal of the prosecution: ''Vigorous enforcement of economic sanctions against the Cuban regime is important to help hasten a transition to democracy on the island.''

According to the AP, “Acosta wouldn't say if his office had specific plans to bring charges against the travel agencies or the thousands of people who traveled using the licenses. ‘We start here, but that doesn't mean we end here,’ Acosta said.”

The arrests are the first criminal prosecution of travel violations by the Cuban Sanctions Enforcement Task Force. It was formed in October, leading to suspicion that this was but another Bush Administration pre-election goodie for its Miami supporters. One reason for creation of the Task Force may be that the civil sanctions process of the Office of Foreign Assets Control has become little more than a threat to induce out of court settlements. Administrative Law hearings in Washington have apparently ground to a halt, due to the case load and readiness of victims to defend their rights.

Without speaking to the guilt or motives of the two men charged, the case illustrates how hard it is for the Administration to enforce a policy that violates widely held beliefs in human rights. As with the prohibition of alcohol and illegal immigration, entrepreneurs inevitably offer ways around regulations that defy values and common sense.

In principle, one prefers energy be channeled to changing unjust laws or to public acts of civil disobedience such as ended racial segregation. In practice, average people find ways to cope in order to maintain family ties. The numbers involved give their action political significance.

Antonio Zamora told the Cuba Summit conference in Newark last fall that tighter travel restrictions were imposed for two reasons. Wide scale visits by Cuban Americans (and by diverse main stream groups) were undermining the political message of the hard liners and were generating profits for travel agents and charter flight providers who used them to campaign to end all restrictions.

The distortion of priorities of the legal system to enforce the political agenda of a small anachronistic interest group is another reminder of how the country as a whole will benefit when Congress ends travel restrictions.

John McAuliff 2/25/07

Straws in the Wind

2007-04-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

As we slog on to expand support for the House and Senate bills for unrestricted travel, it is worth keeping in mind the larger debate over US policy toward Cuba that will provide the context for Congressional action.

The Voice of America has run a reasonable story about US-Cuba trade quoting extensively no less a source than Kirby Jones. While VOA is much more credible than the US funded propaganda stations (Radio Marti, Radio Free Asia), it has not been known for the independence of the BBC. Take a look at http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-02-voa25.cfm

That page offers a link to another interesting VOA story from March 19th, "Castro Seen Returning to Power, But Cuba's Style Changing":

As Cuba's government begins to transform, Andy Gomez says U.S. policy towards the island should change as well."We need to start thinking about the future, and about what we as a country in the international community can do, at a time that is crucial given what is happening in Latin America, to accelerate
change in Cuba," he said.Gomez says he feels the United States should begin revising the strict policies that prohibit most trade and activity with Cuba.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-19-voa63.cfm

Also of interest is the language used by Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon in an interview with Reuters that was reported on March 21:

While Raul Castro has voiced a willingness to talk to the United States, Shannon suggested the United States would consider such a dialogue only as Cuba moved toward peaceful, democratic change."There is nothing new on that front because
... since Fidel Castro remains this ... controlling presence it means that Raul and the people around him are kind of frozen. There is not a lot that they can do," said Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America.
He said Washington wanted to see clear signs of change, including a release of political prisoners."Any positive step would be welcome ... We have made it clear that our engagement will be determined by change in Cuba and that the degree to which the Cubans show a willingness to take positive steps, we'll respond to it," Shannon added, without saying how such steps would be rewarded.

http://uscubanormalization.blogspot.com/2007/03/state-department-perspective.html

Is State now prepared to see a difference between Raul and Fidel, either really or for the sake of convenience? Does this create space for a new policy when Fidel is not present, or at least definitively not in charge, in contrast with past juvenile pronouncements that Raul was "Fidel light"? Is there in the works a non-"regime change" road map to more normal relations?

Our friends at CAAEF published a more skeptical interpretation of Shannon's spin, seeing it as a way of justifying the failure of predictions that Cuba would face a crisis post-Fidel, i.e. he is still there after all.
http://uscubanormalization.blogspot.com/2007/04/la-alborada-disses-shannon.html

Also giving reason for optimism is the latest poll of Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade and the forum at which they were presented at Brookings on Monday. The poll shows 55% favoring unrestricted travel, and 64% favoring return to the 2003 policies on family and "purposeful" people to people travel. http://www.fiu.edu/~ipor/cuba8/

The full transcript of the Brookings panel is available at http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20070402.htm and it can be watched as a web stream. (Look for it at http://www.brookings.edu/default.htm )

Consider the implications of a comment by Hugh Gladwin, Director, Institute for Public Opinion Research, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Florida International University:

"I think that there is a great desire for policy to change, but you are right in the sense that what is missing in this big picture is some kind of leadership that would then take this obvious diversity which for many of us -- it might be new to some of you -- but for many of us has been very obvious for many, many
years. But make it -- that's where leadership is lacking is to actually make this diversity matter and make it part of a Cuban identity as well."
Also interesting was a comment the moderator invited from the audience by Andres Rosenthal, formerly the Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico:"We all know that there are 33 Latin American Caribbean countries that maintain diplomatic
relations with Cuba, normal diplomatic relations, some more friendly than others. But it is a vast majority of the hemisphere that was not the case until quite recently. There is today, if it were a decision of that majority to go to the OAS and reincorporate Cuba into the OAS, the United States would be isolated in its opposition. And we know that there is considerable opposition. But the fact is that it's very difficult for any of us to engage the U.S. on this discussion, and I don't know whether that will change or not. We're hopeful it will.The Spanish government is currently in Havana, the foreign minister of
Spain together with a rather large delegation today and tomorrow, the first visit to Havana by a foreign minister of an E.U. country since 2003, and the first Spanish visit since 1998, if I'm not mistaken."

This panel was the public aspect of a day long Brookings conference on Cuba which included the participation of the Secretary General of the OAS who has not been shy at voicing his disdain for US policy on Cuba.

Another indicator of how the Cuba travel issue is going mainstream was the Newshour segment on PBS last week. The content was generally sympathetic, but as important was simply recognition that the story was worth covering and that Flake and Serano deserved face time along with the Miami hard liners in Congress.